With so many companies advertising free credit reports on national television, it’s becoming increasingly hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Because if the advertised offer is really free, then can the company justify paying for national advertising? And it’s not like the campaigns ran and then stopped all of a sudden. They’ve been on the air for years now, so it has to be a profit-generating venture. And they all seem to be hell-bent on showing you what horrible things can happen to you should you not get your free credit report, while minimizing the fact that they’re just as intent on selling you something.

Common sense tells us that if the ads keep airing, it’s because the campaigns are successful in reeling in new customers. At the same time, almost everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and that “free” is often a bait that scammers use to lure in unsuspecting victims. In that regard, it’s relevant to wonder if those offers are really free? Free as in no monetary exchange whatsoever.

To make a long story short, the answer is that very few of them are really free. But anyone with a minimum of common sense could have figured that out, so we’re going to go into a bit more detail here, without putting you off by being overly technical. We will start off by telling you that very few free credit report offers are really free, but there are surefire ways to tell which ones are and which ones aren’t.
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